So the UC's are #1. End of story.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I got this email from Caltech. I wonder how it compares with
Texas or NY universities combined, Harvard, MIT etc.
I'm sure the UC's rule.</p>

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<p>You might think it odd that Caltech would brag about being #2. </p>

<p>Caltech has been second since 2001 in patents granted to a university.</p>

<p>Who's first?</p>

<p>Not who you might think. Caltech, with our 300 faculty and 900 undergraduates, is #2 behind the University of California (all ten campuses of the University of California system combined). </p>

<p>In fact, Caltech receives more invention disclosures per faculty member than any other research university in the nation.</p>

<p>What inventions will you be a part of as a Caltech student?</p>

<p>Best wishes,</p>

<p>Ray</p>

<p>Ray Prado
Director of Undergraduate Admissions </p>

<p>P.S. Caltech has helped create more than 80 startup companies since 1995!</p>

2

<p>hahaha i got this email too. i laughed.</p>

3

<p>I’ve read it too. Crafty and eye catching. Get’s the point across very well.</p>

4

<p>I think you missed the point with your topic title, that UC has a lot more people than Caltech.</p>

<p>The UC system has 220034 undergraduates in Fall 2008 (244 times as many as Caltech) and 40064 full-time employed academic personnel (134 times as many).</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/stat/statsum/fall2008/statsumm2008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/stat/statsum/fall2008/statsumm2008.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

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<p>Caltech was third in 2002, behind UC and MIT, according to US Patent and Trademark Office:</p>

<p>[News</a> - Top 10 Universities Receiving Patents in 2003](<a href=“http://www.uspto.gov/main/homepagenews/bak2004feb09.htm]News”>http://www.uspto.gov/main/homepagenews/bak2004feb09.htm)</p>

6

<p>Third also in 2001 and 2005. But I don’t blame it for ignoring MIT :-)</p>

7

<p>Shall we say California rules in this metric - with UCs, Caltech, and Stanford in the top 5 cornering more than half the patents?</p>

8

<p>English and history profs don’t often generate patents. UC has lots of them too. Cal Tech profs have lots more time to work on such things too.</p>

<p>In 2007 Wisconsin beat Stanford 124-106…</p>

9

<p>I’m surprised that Harvard, Princeton and Duke haven’t performed very well in this area.</p>

10

<p>When you think about patents, the number of undergraduates is not a factor. You should look at the number of staff members (faculty included). Caltech has a gigantic JPL center. So Caltech is not that small.</p>

<p>Counting the number of patents probably is not the right way to measure the contribution to science and technology. For example, Stanford falls behind UC, MIT, and Caltech in patents. But I would argue that Stanford is the leading university in modern technology inventions, due to its enormous contributions to Silicon Valley, and its milestone inventions related to radar, radio, laser, internet, micrprocessor, GPS, gene cloning, artifitial intelligience, and etc.</p>

11

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<p>It’s definitely not the right way to measure the quality of undergraduate experience. The number of undergrads at Caltech who are inventors or co-inventors on al those patents is probably very close to zero.</p>

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<p>This is especially misleading. An invention disclosure is in no way equivalent to an issued patent. A disclosure is just a signed and witnessed internal document detailing an idea that he/she thinks might be patentable. Thousands and thousands of disclosures never amount to anything significant. For that matter, a lot of patents never amount to anything either.</p>

12

<p>^
The point is there is a lot of research going on around you and you have a chance to participate because the school is small with high caliber staff and students. As ab undergrad you don’t care as much about patents, but you want to learn the ropes … and land up in one of the succesful startups.</p>